Informational structures: A dynamical system approach for integrated information

PLoS Comput Biol. 2018 Sep 13;14(9):e1006154. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006154. eCollection 2018 Sep.

Abstract

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) has become nowadays the most sensible general theory of consciousness. In addition to very important statements, it opens the door for an abstract (mathematical) formulation of the theory. Given a mechanism in a particular state, IIT identifies a conscious experience with a conceptual structure, an informational object which exists, is composed of identified parts, is informative, integrated and maximally irreducible. This paper introduces a space-time continuous version of the concept of integrated information. To this aim, a graph and a dynamical systems treatment is used to define, for a given mechanism in a state for which a dynamics is settled, an Informational Structure, which is associated to the global attractor at each time of the system. By definition, the informational structure determines all the past and future behavior of the system, possesses an informational nature and, moreover, enriches all the points of the phase space with cause-effect power by means of its associated Informational Field. A detailed description of its inner structure by invariants and connections between them allows to associate a transition probability matrix to each informational structure and to develop a measure for the level of integrated information of the system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Consciousness*
  • Humans
  • Information Theory*
  • Models, Neurological
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Nonlinear Dynamics

Grants and funding

All the authors were supported by Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad Proyecto Explora Ciencia MTM2014-61312-EXP. JAL was also partially supported by Junta de Andalucía under Proyecto de Excelencia FQM-1492 and FEDER Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad grant MTM2015-63723-P. FJE was also supported by ACCIÓN 1 PAIUJA 2017 2018: EI_CTS02_2017 (ref: 06.26.06.20.7A). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.